


Repetition

by kittymsmith



Category: Finishing School - Gail Carriger, Parasol Protectorate - Gail Carriger
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, LGBT mentioned, Pep Talk, not romantic - Freeform, sad lesbian, single mom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 22:47:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7482885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittymsmith/pseuds/kittymsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beatrice Lefoux, retired from her teaching position and now running a shop selling ladies gadgetry, comforts her niece when she believes she can't handle single motherhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Repetition

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BrittWalker2013](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrittWalker2013/gifts).



> *The formatting is jacked because AO3 is also jacked. It's readable, at least, so I hope you enjoy. :3
> 
> Thank you to those who read this! I hope you enjoy. This is just a little bonding kind of fic between Vieve and Madam Lefoux of the FS series, through basically Madam Lefoux/ Beatrice Lefoux's perspective.
> 
> If you enjoy please don't hesitate to leave a kudo or comment. :3

 

 

 

Beatrice Lefoux was organizing a row of poison-dart gloves, a new addition to the shop of spy and espionage related gadgets she owned with her niece in Paris, when said niece walked into the shop, several hours after her shift ended; despondent, woebegone, her tie a little off kilter and her waistcoat buttoned one too high so that there were loose flaps at the bottom and top. It wasn't the most disheveled Beatrice had seen her, especially when considering her rambunctious childhood, but it was certainly the most pathetic.

"Aunt." She said, lip trembling.

Beatrice dropped her handful of gloves. "Genevieve, you look terrible."

Genevieve Lefoux whimpered, and then bound over and thrust herself into her arms. Beatrice frowned, squeezing her close and kissing the top of her head. "Oh, _mon cher_. What is wrong?"  
"Oh, Aunt!" She wailed into the taller woman's shoulder, "I can't do this!"

"Do what?" Beatrice kept an arm tightly around her shoulders and pulled herself away from Genevieve's fingers, putting a hand on her arm and gently guiding the young woman past display cases of poison rings and explosive pastry, going around an armored breast plate perfect for a lady's evening garment. As they passed the purchasing counter Genevieve weakly reached out and took one of the various flavored rolls of taffy for their customers children, biting down while tears collected at her chin and dripped to the floor. Beatrice frowned and pulled back the curtain behind the counter, pushing Genevieve through first, as the passage was too narrow for them both.

Behind the shop was a storage room, organized and clean because Genevieve had no control over inventory. Had her niece been in charge, there would be organized chaos enough to cause Beatrice a heart attack. "What can't you do, _mon cher_?" Beatrice asked again. Genevieve began to speak, but it turned into a wail that she drowned by gluing her teeth together with the taffy. Beatrice fretfully listened to her whimpers as they went up a narrow, dark staircase that led to Beatrice's apartment above the shop. Genevieve had lived there, too, but moved out to live with the source of all her troubles, a pretty young thing named Angelique.

Beatrice sat Genevieve down, knowing it would be one of the times that required two things: patience, and _chocolat chaud_. She glided from the living room up three steps to the raised kitchen. It was as organized and clean as everything else; partially because Beatrice liked order, partially because she had nothing else better to do on a Sunday than clean. She gathered all she needed to make _chocolat chaud_ and set to work, boiling the milk and chocolate and pouring the latter in, whisking until it was a perfect creamy mix. She poured a very large mug for her niece and then paused, remembering when Genevieve was a child and they lived in Devon. She reached up into the tallest cabinet on the highest shelf and snatched a half-full bag of small marshmallows. She took out a handful and dropped in two eyes and carefully laid down a mouth. She thought about adding a nose, but ended up eating the marshmallow intended for that purpose.

She then took the mug in her long, aging fingers and carefully carried it back to her niece, the smell wafting in her face as she went and reminding her she hadn't had dinner. Genevieve quietly thanked her and took the mug, looking down and, much to Beatrice's relief, cracking a smile. The poor girl was so untidy and dour Beatrice had to fight the urge to look just as sad. She sat on the couch beside Genevieve's chair and smoothed out her skirts, giving the girl a moment to sniffle and take a few sips of her drink. After what felt like a century Beatrice moved a hand onto Genevieve's arm, squeezing it lightly. "Now, Niece, you tell me what is your trouble."

Genevieve moved her eyes in her direction, head pointed at the _chocolat chaud_. "Q-Quensel."

"And what about him? Do I need to take a broom to his backside again?" Quensel was a rambunctious, rabble-rousing, trouble causing twerp that Beatrice loved very much, almost as much as his mother did.

" _N-non_ , Aunt." Genevieve sniffled. "Well, maybe."

"I have it ready to go _mon cher_." She patted her arm, then took her head gently and angled it towards herself. "Now, you tell me what exactly is going on."

Genevieve whined, turning head away, and then back, and then away again before finally turning her full self to her aunt, clutching the _chocolat chaud_ to her chest. "I can't do it, Aunt. I can't be a _maman_. There is so much-it is so hard! Constantly the complaining, and the whining and moaning. He is always sick or dirty no matter how many handkerchiefs I carry!" She set down the _chocolat chaud_ with a clatter and a spill on the coffee table. "I cannot go in public with him. He dresses like a decrepit newsboy and yells and hollers at birds in the middle of the street. It does not help to be called a whore behind your back by strangers and friends alike for carrying around a bastard child that isn't even yours. And I have no time! He goes to school, I run the shop, I get him, and it is on, and on, and on-the mess, the experiments, the insane pranks! No matter what I say or what I do, or what he promises, it does not change!"

She dropped her head, defeated, into her skinny hands as her elbows rested on her knees. "Aunt, I am a failure! I cannot raise a child-I can't keep his mother around, I cannot keep her or any others' love-o-oh, _Aunt_." The last word dropped like a brick, so full of sorrow and frustration that Beatrice was about ready to cry herself, though she kept the same worried expression the entire time Genevieve ranted. She'd never been so pained in all her career of teaching or in raising her niece. Her mind was clogged, a bottleneck letting out one slow solution after another, none of which were appropriate for the situation. She rubbed her niece's back to stall while she thought. Suddenly an answer came to her, after recalling her own time with a little Genevieve, full of dangerous experiments and abundant enthusiasm.

"Oh, _mon caneton_ , come here, come here," she patted the couch next to her. Genevieve turned her head slowly, running a hand through her hair, causing her top hat to fall to the ground. Beatrice patted the spot again, and the young woman stood up slowly and, slouching, walked over and sat down. Beatrice proceeded to drag her from the spot and int her lap where Genevieve, while surprised, readily adjusted herself so she was cuddled up against her aunt with her head on her shoulder. Beatrice wrapped her arms around the bundled twenty-seven year old and kissed her cheek, rocking her gently and humming.

She could feel her relax in her arms, remembering all the times she held her like this when she was a child, all curled up in her lap with a frown or a scowl or a sour pout. She leaned her head against her Genevieve's, almost sniffling at the memory. It had been so long ago; she'd been a young woman, bright eyed and overworked, fighting for her spot in the scientific community while single handedly rearing a small demon she'd die for in a heartbeat. Now she was an old maid, a matron with few friends and fewer family, who had reclined into a pleasant life of apartment cleaning and weapons dealing.

But Genevieve was still young and bright eyed and overworked, rearing a little demon she'd die for in a heartbeat.

"Now, _mon caneton_ , I want you to remember this. You are listening?"

Genevieve nodded, angling head towards her with large eyes that glittered like emeralds with her brimming tears.

"My situation was some different, but the same other ways. You were almost exactly like Quensel as a girl, you know; alibet without such an affinity for gigantic bangs, you preferred for useful inventions-like those strange roller skates you made once."

She blinked. "Really? I was as bad as _him_?" Beatrice nodded. "I'm sorry."

She chuckled. "I can laugh at it now. You will laugh at it, too. You didn't mean to be so much trouble. The switch never meant much to your behind, and you couldn't understand why I'd be so tired."

Genevieve nodded slowly. "I do remember that, wondering why you were tired," she felt at her eyes and the bags under them, "you were always tired."

"Mhm, and you were always causing trouble. The mechanical flying duck, a top hat that was also a battery-powered dirt-sucker to clean the carpet, flung every bit of debris everywhere in the house. The electronic _chocolat chaud_ brewer, made the house smell like spoiled milk for weeks. And all your little school gadgets that annoyed everyone and always got _me_ in trouble because they knew _you_ were _mine_."

Genevieve smiled sheepishly.

Beatrice smirked. "But you still were a good child. You did as I needed you to-not always as I _asked_ , but almost always as I _needed_. And you helped plenty at home and the school. You were a pleasant little thing to chat to."

Genevieve rubbed at her cheek where it blushed, smiling as she left a small coal smudge that Beatrice couldn't fathom the origin of. She licked her thumb and rubbed it off, ignoring Genevieve's meek protest. "I see now, how much I was like him. Though I'd say he is far less helpful."

Beatrice shrugged. "I will not deny that. But he is not a bad child, just unruly. Some children are like that. But you are his _maman_ \- not Angelique, you. You have cared and loved him and he will never forget that. He'll stop being so much to handle soon enough; he will still be trouble, I can see it in his face, but he will not be bad."

Genevieve nodded some, looking hopeful-but there was something in her eye, something that didn't match. Beatrice let it rest a moment, to give Genevieve time to think and ponder, before saying, "there is something else, isn't there?"

Genevieve said nothing, though she clenched her jaw.

"Something worse?"

Genevieve swallowed and scooted out of Beatrice's lap, looking at her. She hugged her legs to her chest. "It, um, his father-"

"What about him? Who is he, even?" Beatrice had quite forgotten Quensel had a father. She'd become settled into the idea that he was spawned from mischievousness and gun powder.

Genevieve rubbing her neck. "A Lord. He and his men, they came threatening to take him."

Beatrice's eyebrows shot up. "They can't do that! He is yours-you have papers!"

Genevieve sighed. "They said they'd have them found illegitimate, and if they couldn't do that they'd find me a...a..."

"Bad mother," Beatrice finished, understanding some what had made her niece snap. "Why do they even care now?"

"The lord's new wife can't have children. He probably decided Quensel is worth something now that he can't replace him." Her hands were shaking a little as she pretended to casually clean under her fingernails. She gave Beatrice a small smile. "It'll be fine. He will not win."

Beatrice considered her niece, dressed in men's clothes, single, raising a bastard child from her woman lover. Everything no one liked in a woman. "Of course, _cher_ , he couldn't win."

Seeming reassured, or at least possessing more strength than before, Genevieve soon left, leaving Beatrice to a cold dinner alone that let her plan.

The next day Genevieve came into the shop with a grin and a newspaper, the headline clear at the top: **FRENCH LORD DEAD, INVESTIGATION REVEALS NOTHING.**


End file.
